Tag: facebook

So, you have been on Facebook for quite some time and even got a business page setup for your brand in one proud moment. You expected people to like your jokes, share your photos and comment on your posts, as they have been doing on your competitors Facebook page.

However, nothing seems to be working and the loneliness if starting to hurt your brand. Well, failure at community management is the most common mistake committed by brands. This hurts their chances to make any breakthrough in lead generation, client servicing, and becoming a brand that is social and connected.

Why this happens?

Lack of Objectives: Facebook is a great marketing platform or that’s what you heard from someone. However, don’t forget that the rules of marketing still uphold for the social network. Start by defining your social media objectives. What do you plan to do with your Facebook page and the SM identity in general? What are the end objectives? Thinking about these questions would help you define your branding and content strategy.

Push Strategy: Give your fans what they want and not what you are. Post what you core community is interested in and not just what you are good at. Bottom line is do not hard sell trying to make a traditional sales pitch. Be social and become part of the conversation!

Know your community: Make use of range of free analytic tools like Facebook Insights, SocialMention and Google Alerts to know where your community resides and what they are talking about. Start listening to their conversations on social networks, blogs, forums and jump in where ever you can without being too nosey.

Have a content strategy: Develop a social media calendar for your content strategy that could deliver high engagement levels i.e. where users willingly choose to embrace you brand. You can do that by developing Facebook apps, coupons, contests, videos, cartoons etc. Your fans or their friends will always trace back the links to your online identity getting you more traffic and viral engagement. Never abandon your Facebook page and always keep it updated.

Remember social networks like Facebook helps you embrace social i.e. relying on users recommendations and likes to give thumbs up to your products and services, so that even their friends become positively disposed towards your brand. Can you choose to ignore it?

I will just give you a few tips here. You need to follow these as the golden rules and you are bound to get viral traffic. You need people to go viral and if you don’t have people, then no one is talking about you. If no one is talking about you, you can’t go viral. Follow these steps to go viral.

Let us first tell you that this part is the most important one, if you are looking to grow your brand awareness via Social Media. If you can’t attract users, then you can’t have lots of fans. If you can’t have lots of Fans, then you can’t have lots of interactions. If you don’t have lots of interactions, your brand will not spread by word of mouth – and if that does not happen, then you end up paying huge sums of money

I have worked with clients who have been paying 8-20 times more to get a user to become a fan! So this means that if your marketing target is 100,000 fans, then you are paying this 8-20 times factor for 100,000 fans.

Here is how you need to attract fans – Believe me, there are no two ways about this (unless you are a very well know brand already)

· Facebook Ads – Set aside money for Ads – You need to spend money to get the critical mass on your Facebook page. Applications that promise “viral” traffic also need to spend, so if they are also spending on Facebook Ads, then how can you escape

· Research – Once you decide on your budget, then start your research – Understand who will be interested in your page – Who means a lot of things – Age, Sex, Hobbies, Interests, Country, City etc. It does not end there – This is a factor that varies every minute of the day. Here is an example – You are a potential target for a “Games” page right now, but you may not be a potential when you are in the office on a Monday morning.

· Ads creation and Optimization – This part is best left to experts. Creating Ads and optimizing them is an art. I can target the same profile of users and pay 5 times less than what you are paying. Simply because I know how to create Ads, optimize the Ads and monitor them to update them regularly. If you really want to save a lot of money, contact an expert.

· Monitor – Facebook provides lots of reports so track everything. Track your cost per click, cost per fans – The user profiles who like your Ad…. Everything. Once you start monitoring, you will see patterns. Good ones and Bad ones. Keep the good ones and discard the bad ones.

I cannot emphasize enough on this topic. If you have to really create a brand on Facebook, you HAVE to follow the above mentioned steps.